


In the Service of a Practical God

by mazily



Category: Temple of the White Rat Universe - T. Kingfisher
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/pseuds/mazily
Summary: Tomorrow—today, really, by the clock—is the last day of the White Rat’s year.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	In the Service of a Practical God

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raven (singlecrow)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/gifts).



> Thanks to L— for beta, talking, and more.

Zale holds the candle beneath the wax, waiting as it begins to melt. Bright blue, fragrant with oils, dripping onto the closed seam of the first of their file boxes. Once enough melted wax has pooled, they put the candle back down on the desk. The sealing wax on the plate next to it. They pick up their seal and stamp the box—whisper the ceremonial prayer, and push the box against the wall.

The last settlement payment has been processed and retribution has been made and authenticated by the proper authorities; the case is officially closed. The file will be moved to the Temple at Aquila-on-Marsh for archiving with the rest of the year-end files. A final autopsy of a case: reams of papers, motions and decisions, carefully marked up exhibits and a mountain of discovery, all packed into a dozen boxes and inventoried on the official packing sheet. 

Tomorrow—today, really, by the clock, which is troubling—is the last day of the White Rat’s year. A day for clearing out old cases and prepare for new challenges ahead; waking before dawn to join the Procession of the Archived Files, marching to the quay with the wagons of boxes all to be loaded onto the barge. Papers are rolled up and set aside (the courts and various agencies having long ago realized it was in their best interest to close as well, given that no representatives of the Rat would be available as legal counsel), and no supplicants will line up outside the Temple’s doors.

Another prayer—to learn from this case, and build their practice accordingly to better serve the Rat—and Zale picks up the wax and candle again. They need to finish packing up the file, to give their memorandum about the Greentree property dispute for Bishop Beartongue one final review before asking the night courier to bring it to her office, to hopefully sleep for at least an hour or two (or, barring that, to shower and change into clean robes before their morning meeting). 

So: melt the wax, pray, seal. Stack the boxes on the cart the clerks will use to wheel them outside to be sent on to the Temple Of File Storage And Archiving. 

There’s a rap on his door, and: 

"I did offer you a new assistant," Bishop Beartongue says. 

"You did, your holiness," Zale answers. They push themself to their feet, wipe the front of their vestments in a fruitless attempt to straighten out any wrinkles. 

"You declined my offer," she says, "If I recall correctly."

If she recalls correctly, ha. Zale has to swallow their reflexive laughter at that statement: of course she recalls correctly, it’s what she does. She remembers even the smallest of details, and she keeps the Temple running. Zale clears their throat. "I did," they say. 

Zale’s previous assistant tendered her resignation in the middle of pre-trial motion practice on a particularly gnarly breach-of-contract case. She’d been apologetic, practically groveling, as she explained that she’d fallen in love with a baker, that she must’ve misunderstood her calling to the service of the White Rat, that she and her wife were moving to Anuket City to take over her wife’s family bakery. 

Bishop Beartongue looks amused. Challenging. She smiles, and it feels more like a reprimand than the dressing down Zale received from her for overcommitting themself to too many cases, thereby serving none of them (there was a cow involved, and it remains the benchmark by which Zale still measures all reprimands to this day). "The offer still stands," she says. "We have a new administrative acolyte who has yet to be formally assigned, and I think he’d be a good fit for you."

When Louise quit, Zale hadn’t had the energy to learn a new assistant. It was all they could do to get through the trial, stay afloat of the rest of their caseload and regular Temple counseling shifts, to eat and drink and sleep semi-regularly. (Also, they’d honestly liked Louise. She’d been funny, and sweet, and was a deft touch with Zale’s particular shorthand. Not everyone can decipher it.)

"Thank you," Zale says. They look around the mess of their office; by the tail of God, they might be able to see their desktop again with a bit of administrative help. "I think I will take you up on that offer this time."

"Very well," Bishop Beartongue says. "We can discuss the specifics at a more reasonable hour, but I’ll start the paperwork in the morning. Which reminds me, I stopped by when I saw your light on to see if your memorandum on the Greentree dispute is ready for my review. Figured I’d save the night courier a trip if it is."

Zale blows a strand of hair away from their face. They could just give it to the Bishop as currently drafted; the legal analysis section is sound—if only because there are no comparators in the caselaw—although they’d like to review the copy of Ash’s they borrowed from one of the clerks just in case there’s something in there about shifting property lines. "Not quite," they admit. "Waterston just loaned me their Ash’s, and I want to check it for any mentions of a similar situation."

"Oh well," she says. "Have the night courier slip it in the box outside my personal chambers, and don’t stay up too late with your research. We can always talk it out during our meeting."

*

Zale sleeps through their alarm. Rushes through their morning routine—splashing cold water on their face to try to wake themself up, scrubbing salt and sage on their teeth (too quickly to be truly effective, but better than nothing), pulling their hair back and sloppily braiding it. They finally sent their memorandum about the Greentree property dispute off to the Bishop’s chambers around one, then staggered into bed a few hours after that. 

Zale finishes dressing. They really, really hope their memo makes sense in the light of day.

They slip on their boots at the door, grab the bag and concertina folders and document tubes they’d left on the table just inside their quarters last night (knowing full well they wouldn’t have time for breakfast and a stop in their office). Zale’s foot catches on the small step in the doorway. They stumble—"Rat’s bones," they curse, clutching tightly at their files—but Zale manages to catch themself without dropping anything. 

A quick detour to the dining hall for tea and a pastry, and Zale is actually going to be on time for their meeting with Bishop Beartongue. They eat as they walk, balancing files and mug and flaky, buttery pastry, and Rat willing not dusting their vestments with too many crumbs.

A paladin slips out of the Bishop’s office as Zale turns the corner into her corridor, looking in either direction before stepping fully into the hallway. They nod at each other as they pass, and Zale tells themself they don’t see a mark on the paladin’s neck, blood-flushed and—are those teeth, no, by the tail of the Rat, Zale does not want to know. It’s none of their business, not unless it affects the running of the Temple, and Rat knows the Bishop has as much right to a personal life as anyone else who hasn’t taken a vow of celibacy.

Zale waits a beat, and another. A deep breath and a sip of tea (finally cool enough to drink, and only slightly too bitter this morning), and Zale turns to knock on the Bishop’s door. A strand of hair falls loose from their braid, tickling at the side of their eye, as they wait for Bishop Beartongue to grant them entry.

She opens her door herself, rather than calling for Zale to enter. Her gray hair has not a strand out of place, but her cheeks are slightly flushed and her iron grey eyes spark with something Zale does not want to investigate further. 

"Zale," she says, "Perfect timing, I just finished reviewing your memo." 

"Your holiness," Zale answers. Oh dear sweet Rat, they hope the memo made sense.

"You’re wearing some of your breakfast," Bishop Beartongue says, and Zale looks down at their chest. They’d wipe the crumbs away, but their arms are too full. Instead they just shrug, shimmy a little, and hope for the best as they follow the Bishop into her office. 

*

"Tell me about your—what was it again?," Bishop Beartongue says. She’s squinting at the memorandum Zale prepared for her. There are smudges of ink and sticky flags on every page, enough to show she spent a decent amount of time with it. "Moving property line, is it? I’m not sure I fully understand."

Zale leads Bishop Beartongue over to an empty table. They unroll the Land Registry title plan. 

"It’s the hedge just along this line," Zale says. They point at a line on the plan, press against it with their fingernail. It shimmers, just slightly, and flickers. And then it jumps: over Zale’s finger, to the other side of their knuckle, nestling against a water feature. 

"By the tail of the Rat," Bishop Beartongue says.

Zale lifts their hand, and the line slivers closer to a shed, hissing like a snake as it moves. "It moves whenever you try to figure out where the hedge actually is—it and the small ditch next to it, because whatever it is seems to abide by the hedge and ditch treatise—and not just in the paperwork. The actual hedge moves. We had two surveyors out."

Bishop Beartongue clicks her tongue. "I’ve never heard of anything like that before."

"There just isn’t anything in the Boundary Practices Protocol on this," Zale explains. "Nothing at all. No case law, no precedent either. The single mention of anything even remotely similar possibly happening I could find involved a minor princess, so it was ruled that both sets of land should go to the crown, no further analysis nor review necessary."

"Typical, but not particularly helpful with a dispute between two farmers," Bishop Beartongue says. She flips through Zale’s memo again, checks their research against the various documents, the title deeds against the title plans. Scribbles a couple of notes in her legal pad. 

Zale enjoys watching her work. Property may be Zale’s specialization—not that their practice has reflected as much lately, what with all the murders—but Bishop Beartongue did estates work when she was a solicitor-sacrosanct. she always seems to ask the right questions to focus a case, to get at the heart of the thing, even if she isn’t as well-versed in the details; it’s what makes her a great bishop.

"None of the statutes speak to this either," Zale says. "Which is disappointing in the extreme."

"Does anyone know where the hedge was meant to be?" she asks. 

"I’ve pulled all the records related to the land in question, but some of the files at the Land Registry were destroyed in the great floods," Zale says. They point to the state of the papers they’ve pulled from the Registry; these are the best of the water destroyed lot, and they’re greying and blue smudged and missing data. The Registry won’t let the rest of them off the premises—they’re too fragile, prone to breaking apart; even the best storage protocols wouldn't have stopped paper from being destroyed in the floods, and the Registry's systems fall somewhat below that—not that there’s anything legible on them. "Including the paperwork about the original division of the land."

"And there’s nothing in the record about any previous owners disputing the boundary lines?"

Zale sighs. Of course there isn’t. 

"Right then," Bishop Beartongue says. "Is there any record of either set of landowners having a wonderworker in the family?"

*

The clock chimes noon, and Bishop Beartongue offers to have a meal brought in.

"Remember," she says, when Zale demurs, "We have our annual safety training this afternoon." 

"Right," Zale says. "I could do with with a sandwich then." They’re sure they won’t survive the training on an empty stomach. (They’ve managed to be away on other business the previous two sessions, but, "You’re out of luck this year," the Bishop said, when Zale inquired about taking the written exam without attending the session. "We all need to get recertified, even those of us who have actually been through a kidnapping. No more testing out.")

The Bishop sends a message to the kitchen asking them to send up whatever’s on offer today. 

"I can leave you to your lunch in privacy," Zale offers. They can eat in their own office, let Bishop Beartongue enjoy a moment or two of solitude (with a sandwich, perhaps, and tea). "We might do better with some time away from these records."

"No," she says. "Please, let’s share a meal. I promise no shop talk for the duration—I do agree with you on that front. These records won’t make any less sense after some time away from them, and there’s not much we’ll be able to figure out until we get a wonderworker to look at everything."

They’ve managed to come up with a decent enough strategy: frustrate and stall by papering the other side with as much motion practice as possible (Zale) while the Temple locates a wonderworker who specializes in land magic to serve as an expert (Bishop Beartongue).

"I don’t think Mr. Greentree would come to the Rat for help if he’s the one using magic to affect the property lines," Zale says, still working things over in their mind. "But we’ve had stranger supplicants. We’ll need to look into both parties equally." 

"Tea," Bishop Beatongue says. "And sandwiches. Maybe this mess will untangle itself in the meantime."

In the end, the Bishop gets her way. That’s why she’s the bishop, and Zale has no desire to rise to that position. They share tea, and sandwiches, and conversation about the tapestry that’s been moved into a corridor near the paladins’ quarters.

Zale doesn’t comment about the paladin they’ve spotted slipping in and out of the Bishop’s rooms. Bishop Beartongue deserves her privacy: to have a life of her own, outside of cases and administration and worshipping the Rat, and Zale hopes Bishop Beartongue, Paladin Isthvan, and anyone else involved in their relationship are all happy. 

"Have you heard about the new judge in the family courts?" Bishop Beartongue asks. 

"No," Zale says. They haven’t practiced in family court since last year—a pair of twins, twelve years old, alone after their parents succumbed to fever, suddenly inundated with mysterious relatives they’d never heard of before—when the justices were all familiar and well-practiced. "Is it anyone I should worry about?"

Bishop Beartongue leaves forward. Hands steepled, elbows resting on the table. "Well, first of all, Consul Harmon is a friend of the Archon, with very little legal experience," she begins. "In fact, unless there are two people with the same name, he’s never practiced in the courts at all. Just counseled the Motherhood, for the love of the Rat."

*

Zale can’t stop yawning. Their mouth stretches open, no matter how hard they fight it, jaw cracking and back of their throat wide and open. Their chest filling with oxygen. They turn, tuck their chin, try to hide it. 

"None of that, you'll set me off," Bishop Beartongue says.

Zale and the Bishop are seated next to each other near the back of the hall, with a decent amount of space between them and the other attorneys, priests, and assorted servants of the Rat taking advantage of the last training session of the year. It’s a bigger group than it should be, with everyone putting off finishing up their continuing education until the last minute. 

The trainer is a large man, bald and bearded, and he barks out instructions like they’re orders. When he explains that, "By the end of this session, you’ll all be able to successfully navigate and thwart any kidnapping attempts that might happen on the road," Bishop Beartongue snorts. 

Zale bites their tongue to keep themself from shushing a Bishop. They’d rather not be transferred to a rural posting, or assigned only forestry cases for a year, or any of the other punishments Bishop Beartongue jokes about when Zale’s being particularly frustrating or brilliant. They just need to get through the entire session; they signed in at the start, and a clerk will note their attendance as they exit. 

Normally Zale would find a seat somewhere by themself. Would blank their face, listen to the training session (possibly scribbling notes were the session particularly interesting, which isn’t likely; servants of the Rat are required to attend these security trainings annually, but the content never changes). But they’d entered with Bishop Beartongue, still trying to work out the stickier bits of the Greentree dispute, and now they’re seated side by side. 

"Oh, because kidnappers are known for leaving their victims untied and unattended," Bishop Beartongue mutters.

"Not to mention providing them with implements to help them escape," Zale says.

Someone a few rows up—Sarra, one of the younger clerks—glances back, clearly annoyed with their noise. She turns back to the front as soon as she recognizes Bishop Beartongue. Face gone white, even in the low light of the hall.

It occurs to Zale that the Bishop is the only other person at the Temple Zale is confident has also survived a kidnapping attempt. They wonder if anyone else in the room is also thinking back, remembering how little any of this was applicable to a real kidnapping.

Then again, Zale had stayed remarkably calm. Sometimes training is really just designed to inspire and grow confidence. To make one think they’re prepared, even in the face of confusion and panic and fear.

"Your holiness," says the giant shadow who just appeared out of nowhere—Paladin Stephen, Zale realizes, a beat too slowly. "You’re needed to help mediate a, well, discussion between some of the cooks about tonight’s feast."

Bishop Beartongue turns to Zale. "A Bishop’s work is never done," she says, placing her arm on their arm to get their attention. "Take notes for me while I’m gone," she adds. She pushes herself up to her feet. "I really can’t afford not to get credit for this session."

"Oh," Zale says. They fear that their face is reflecting just how desperate they are to mediate kitchen arguments too. Or to cook the feast while the kitchen staff laughs. They pull a notebook from their bag, and rummage for a pen. "Of course," they add, when the Bishop doesn’t immediately leave. 

Bishop Beartongue sighs. "I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, twenty tops," she says. "I really hope I don’t miss the role-play session; Trainer Rose promised me he’d ask Waterston to play the kidnapper."

*

The clocks are chiming, as they will on a regular interval for the next two hours. 

At dawn, everyone will meet at the quay to load the year’s closed cases onto the barge that will ferry them to Aquila-on-Marsh (having learned years ago that keeping all of their files in the Temple led to overwhelming clutter and mess, not to mention desperate midnight searches through every cabinet and bread box whenever a supplicant returned for a copy of the legal document they'd lost or accidentally thrown away). 

But tonight, they feast. The paladins grumble every year, insisting that they be left out of the Rat’s revelry, but Zale has caught one or two of them trying to disguise a smile as a cough in the middle of the lighting of the candles. And while they sit in a far corner, away from the most raucous crowd, the paladins have finally started joining in the midnight feast. 

A strand of hair has fallen loose from Zale’s braid again, and it tickles at the side of their face. They blink, squint, try to shake the hair back without dropping the last of their file boxes they’re bringing out to the cart in the corridor. (It doesn’t work. They worry they look like a civette or a gnole—not bad things, were Zale actually one of them, but as they are neither it’s a fair enough worry.) 

That work finally finished, they walk back to their quarters to get ready for the celebrations. 

The Temple is particularly busy on the last day of the year. Runners tasked with filing last minute pleadings dash by on their way to the exit, muttering prayers that they’ll make it to the courts before everything closes down for the day. Hara and Percy rush past Zale without stopping, deep in conversation about some matter or another. Every sound seems magnified. The smell of spice and wax and incense is everywhere now, part of the air for the next twenty-four hours.

Zale takes down their plait and combs the knots from their hair. Pulls it back again, rebraiding it carefully. They splash water on their face, and scrub their teeth more conscientiously than they managed this morning. They pull their ceremonial vestments from the bureau and lay them across the bed. There aren’t too many wrinkles, thank the Rat, so Zale drops their regular vestments to the floor and changes into the ceremonial ones. The gold embroidered Rats along the collars twinkle in the candlelight. 

Zale studies themself in the mirror. Lifts one arm, then the other, and judges themself acceptable.

Over the course of the day, the priests and lawyers and assorted staff of the Temple of the White Rat will celebrate their wins and commiserate over their losses, make offerings to the Rat, and renew their vows. They will accept new acolytes and clerks and welcome them into service. They will thank the paladins, who will grudgingly accept the gratitude if only to stop everyone from looking at them, and a few of the younger attorneys will find a paw print next to their plate at the dinner table, signifying good fortune and more solo casework in the year ahead. 

"So it is, and so it has been, and so it will be," Zale says, giving themself one last check in the mirror. The Rat is a practical God, and the Rat only asks his servants for what they can give; Zale tries to remind themself of that tenet whenever their caseload grows heavy or the responsibility seems like it might be too much to bear. They've been called to this service; called to the Rat and the law both, and Zale finds no small measure of peace in that calling.

Zale says a quick prayer before leaving their quarters again. Puts on their nicest shoes, picks up their offering from the side table, and gently closes their door behind them when they leave.    
  



End file.
